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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25796086">A Bigger Cage Is Still A Prison</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wakeywakey_bigmistakey/pseuds/Wakeywakey_bigmistakey'>Wakeywakey_bigmistakey</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The 100 (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Boarding School AU, Dark Academia, idk - Freeform, or maybe dead poets society, something resembling the secret history</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:42:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25796086</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wakeywakey_bigmistakey/pseuds/Wakeywakey_bigmistakey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The kind of dark academia where a group of girls form something that might vaguely resemble a cult</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clarke Griffin &amp; Lexa, Clarke Griffin/Lexa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Bigger Cage Is Still A Prison</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Moving swiftly among the trees, Lexa’s eyes flicker once, twice, over and over again. She might laugh at the absurdity of her own paranoia if she wasn’t so afraid of getting caught. The slightest sound sends her heart galloping in her chest. </p><p>Desperately backtracking her steps in her mind, she finally spots the stream of water signalling the right track. Taking a right turn, the trees start thinning before she’s standing in a clearing lit up by candles spread across the undergrowth.</p><p>In the middle, a group of shadows stand close together. The flickering light gives them a bizarre aura of unearhtlyness. Like they might dissipate at any given moment. </p><p>“Welcome,” a recognizable voice rings out when Lexa gets close enough that she starts recognizing faces. </p><p>Clarke steps forward, the hood of her dark cloak pulled back to reveal her hair done up in an elaborate braid. </p><p>They all form what might loosely be described as a circle. One by one, the rest of them take off their hoods. Lexa recognizes each one, as they probably do her, but not a word is exchanged. A slight wind rustles the treetops and sends the candle flames dancing. </p><p>Clarke steps forward and for the briefest, most fleeting moment, Lexa wants to laugh. The mere banality of her, standing there with her golden hair looking more like a crown than individual strands, posture like a statue and face set in determination; and yet the pattern of her socks, barely visible underneath the cloak and pants, shimmering in pink glitter. </p><p>She wants to laugh, but she doesn’t. The moonlight, the trees, the circle of tenacious faces, it all beckons the purest severity. </p><p>“We gather here tonight,” Clarke’s voice rings out, no hesitancy or pause. “Under the moon, to celebrate that we are here at all. The children cast off, the adults in the making, recognizing ourselves as the future now becoming.”</p><p>Drawing from some hidden pocket a worn leather bound book, there’s a brief break in the speech. Clarke takes her time finding the page, the silence surrounding her continuing. </p><p>Breaking the spine, her eyes trace the page before she starts once more. Lexa can see the eyes in the circle jumping around, everyone taking in the scene. She can’t tear her eyes away from Clarke. </p><p>“<em> My voice rings down through thousands of years. To coil around your body and give you strength, you who have wept in direct sunlight, who have hungered in invisible chains, tremble to the cadence of my legacy: An army of lovers shall not fail </em>.” Clarke finishes the recitation and lets her gaze travel the circle.</p><p>When it lodges on Lexa, it’s as if something comes loose in Lexa’s chest. They keep their eyes connected for a long moment. </p><p>Lexa finally manages to look around, to notice the others in the crowd. Something feels fundamentally changed. As if some net has sprung from the rich soil, linking each figure to the next, unspoken understanding residing in the shivering body.</p><p>The road back is quiet, the sublime sense dissolving into the night sky. Once the line reaches the edge of the trees, something heavy settles in Lexa’s chest at the towering shape ahead.</p><p>In the blurry darkness, the buildings loom more grimly than usually. Their heavy stones seem to demand something sinister, some obedience to principles that she can’t find within herself. Quickly and quietly, they slip inside and part ways. </p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Were it not for the mud underneath her shoes and the bags adorning her eyes, Lexa might come to believe that the night before did not, in fact, happen at all. Nimbly twisting her tie into place and securing the blazer, she looks herself over once in the mirror; the picture of a perfect student. </p><p>In the classroom, she sits at the heavy desk next to the window. Clarke slips into the seat in front of her just before the beginning of the lesson.</p><p>For that moment, she wants so badly to be someone that she is not. Someone who initiates, who draws others out by her mere presence. Instead, Lexa gets out her notebook and scribbles along with the teacher’s words. </p><p>Clarke is tapping out some vaguely recognizable rhythm on her table, just above audible. </p><p>In the reading hall, later on, a book is slid onto Lexa’s table. Waking from her reverie, she looks up to find a receding figure. Tall wooden bookcases and high, pointed windows lend the room an aura of history unfitting for its actual youth. </p><p>The book is worn, edges frayed and spine threadbare. It carries neither title nor author, only a pattern of anatomical hearts splayed across it. </p><p>Opening the cover, a handwritten note is scrawled underneath the title in nearly illegible script.</p><p>
  <em> I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other. </em>
</p><p>She slips the book into her backpack and resumes her work, but with less vigor. It pulls something in her. Her mind keeps going back to the forest, to the gathering that has taken permanent residence in the back of her mind. </p><p>A wall of surrealism has sprung between her and her body, the work that she knows she has to do for school, life, all the daily that surrounds her. It’s there and she’s there and logically, she’s aware that she’s going through the motions. Her head is somewhere else, somewhere in the trees where the words run wild and it all makes sense.</p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>When they all gather again, it is not in the clearing. On this night, the risk of getting caught is too daunting and there seems to be eyes everywhere. The staff seem extra wary and as such, are patrolling the hallways much more meticulously than usual.</p><p>Instead, they all cram into Clarke’s room. It sits on the top floor of the residence building, where there is a measure more privacy than anywhere else on campus. </p><p>One of the walls tilts inwards, along the roof outside. </p><p>Octavia recites this time, and though she doesn’t falter or pause, Lexa can’t quite keep from feeling it less breathtaking. Inwardly, she tells herself that it is the less appealing surroundings.</p><p>“<em>From childhood’s hour, I have not been                                                                                                                                                                                                                              As others were—I have not seen                    </em> </p><p><em>As others saw—I could not bring</em> </p><p>
  <em>My passions from a common spring—</em>
</p><p>
  <em>From the same source I have not taken</em>
</p><p>
  <em> My sorrow—I could not awaken </em>
</p><p>
  <em> My heart to joy at the same tone— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Then—in my childhood—in the dawn </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Of a most stormy life—was drawn </em>
</p><p>
  <em> From ev’ry depth of good and ill </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The mystery which binds me still— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> From the torrent, or the fountain— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> From the red cliff of the mountain— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> From the sun that ’round me roll’d </em>
</p><p>
  <em> In its autumn tint of gold— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> From the lightning in the sky </em>
</p><p>
  <em> As it pass’d me flying by— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> From the thunder, and the storm— </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And the cloud that took the form </em>
</p><p>
  <em> (When the rest of Heaven was blue) </em>
</p><p><em> Of a demon in my view </em>”</p><p> </p><p>When she finishes, she looks at Clarke. They all look to Clarke, waiting. Clarke looks back at Octavia with an intensity that sours some being living in Lexa’s ribcage. </p><p>“Thank you, Octavia. What we’re doing here might seem mundane. What are flowery words to the bleak world that surrounds all of us at this moment?” Clarke pauses, lets the question sink in. “I believe that we are unifying, refusing to yield to anyone who demands we stand alone. Together, we will carve out the space that we deserve.”</p><p>Lexa is left wondering whether Clarke prepares her speeches. She sounds like she’s reciting, while it carries the unmistakable presence of herself. </p><p>They discuss the piece loosely, though Lexa suspects she isn’t the only one using more grandiose words than she usually dares. Not that she contributes all that much, but for the first time, speaking does not seem to strangle her on it’s way into the room. Everyone listens. It’s different from any constellation she’s ever been in. </p><p>When the group breaks up for the night, Clarke wraps her fingers around Lexa’s wrist and silently calls for her to stay there. They sit on the windowsill next to the bed, just barely wide enough for them to sit opposite one another. </p><p>“Did you like the book?” Clarke asks, voice much more hushed than the firmness of earlier. </p><p>Lexa wants to say so many things, to express the way that it moved her. More than that, she’s caught between wanting Clarke to know how she devoured it and hoping that she never discovers how Lexa traced each page, as if the ghost of its former owner might still be caught somewhere between the pages.</p><p>“I,” Lexa stumbles, so muted that it might not have been heard if there had been a single sound to interfere. “I liked it. Loved it.”</p><p>Clarke’s lips twitch up. She reaches across the invisible barrier and takes Lexa’s hands into hers. Lexa can’t put words to the storm whisking through her, can’t even name its cause, not exactly. All she can do is note that Clarke’s hands are inkstained and her own are meticulously clean. That there are frays around the collar of Clarke’s white shirt, the first few buttons of which are open, while Lexa has yet to loosen her tie. </p><p>Instead of saying anything more, Lexa quoted: “How many things are we upon the brink of discovering if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.”</p><p>She can’t lift her gaze when she finishes. Her skin feels too small for her body, exposed as if she was naked in a snowstorm. </p><p>“The sun might shine or the clouds might lower, but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before,” Clarke replies, forcing Lexa to look up at her in wonder. </p><p>Clarke, who suddenly seems bashful at admitting to her ability to quote back.</p>
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